Most car radios have an electronic tuner with multiple radio station presets. Typically, a user stores a radio station under a desired preset by tuning to a desired station and then pressing and holding the desired preset button for a short period of time until some form of confirmation (e.g., an audible “beep”) indicates that the radio has stored the station under that preset. In most radios, each preset can store, at most, only one station per band—i.e., one AM station and one FM station. Some radios allow different users to store presets, but each user can store only one station per band under a given preset.
When traveling from one geographical area to another (e.g., during a business trip, vacation, etc.), a driver loses the convenience of his preset stations. The driver goes out of range of preset station, and stations begin to fade, necessitating manual tuning. When the driver reaches his destination away from home, he has the option of re-programming the radio presets, but this has the disadvantage of erasing his previously stored stations (i.e., those corresponding to his hometown) such that, when the driver returns home from his vacation or business trip, he must go through the entire process of programming the presets again. This is very inconvenient, especially for drivers who frequently travel out of the area in which their favorite stations are receivable.
Alternatively, one type of existing car radio allows the traveler to engage a “sweep” feature that temporarily stores a number of stations that are broadcasting in the area through the which the traveler is driving. While this approach has the advantage of not erasing the driver's “hometown” presets, it falls short of providing user-defined presets at multiple locations.
More sophisticated prior art approaches include a look-up table of stations in a particular broadcast area. However, these look-up tables can become outdated quickly. Although updating can take place on sub-carrier frequencies, this requires a sophisticated sub-carrier communication system be included with a radio set, increasing cost and complexity. In addition, not all radio stations provide updating services necessary to support this function. Another disadvantage of the prior art is that signal strength approaches to updating presets are hardware intensive, further increasing cost and complexity of a radio set.
Accordingly, there is a significant need for an apparatus and method that overcomes the disadvantages of the prior art outlined above.